Stupid and malicious

Those are the only two possible descriptions of the authors of this anti-homeschool screed published yesterday in the L.A. Times. A few choice excerpts:

“The court’s decision means that home schoolers must be given some substantive instruction in social studies and not simply spend their time watching Fox with its strange assortment of oddballs pontificating on current events.”

“If home schooling forums on the Web are indicative of the views held by parents of learn-at-home kids, their offspring are getting an extremely warped lesson in civics.”

“It’s evident that the vast majority who teach their offspring in front of the television do so because they don’t want their children to be subjected to such dangerous doctrines as evolution, abortion, global warming, equal rights and other ideas abhorrent to the evangelical mantra.”

Well, you get the idea. I’d love to see real data on the average daily TV viewing hours indulged by homeschooled children and public schooled children, respectively. These bozos seem not to realize that television and public education are on one team, homeschooling on the other. We banned television from our home twelve years ago. Most homeschooling parents we know either forbid television entirely, or they severely restrict viewing time while controlling the content. Fox News isn’t even on the radar of acceptable viewing options.

The good news is that the ridiculous opinions expressed in this piece seem to be in the minority in California. Newspapers up and down the state have been running editorials condemning the Feb 28 ruling non-stop for two weeks. Comments on homeschooling articles are overwhelmingly in favor of keeping parent-directed home education legal. Why? I think it is because homeschooling has become so mainstream in California that almost everyone knows some homeschoolers, and their impressions of these families are mostly positive. Furthermore, while most parents don’t homeschool themselves, many of them would do so if they believed they could, and many more just want to keep this option available to them in the future.

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Egads! What a bunch of twaddle…in our circle of friends (and it’s a pretty big circle) there are only a couple families who even have cable TV. We simply don’t have the time! Not to mention that statistics simply do not bear out this writer’s assumption. Home educated children consistently outscore public and private school students in every core subject. If “civics” equates evolution, abortion and global warming (and I’m assuming the writer is “pro” all of these) then my children are indeed “deficient” in civics.

There has always been something decidedly elitist and anti-democratic in home schooling.

Really? Always? And Home-schoolers routinely testing better is elitist and anti-democratic? And here I thought allowing people no matter their station to excel to their full potential was true egalitarianism.

It smacks of a belief that privileged children

Most homeschooled families I’ve met were middle-class or lower.

should not have to associate with the other kids in the neighborhood and that by staying home, they would not be subjected to the leavening effect of democracy.

I’ll believe the “leavening effect of democracy” thing when progressives stop cowering to every jihadist demand.

Moreover, it is apparent from the cries of the far right that there has been a specific policy in home schooling — to teach only the ideas acceptable to ideologues who fear the contaminating influence of what is commonly known as a liberal education.

Wait a minute. I thought the whole fracas was based on the need for more simple oversight of homeschooling. This goes back to the point I often bring up–if homeschooled students can pass a standardized test, that should be proof enough of parental competence. Hell, make ‘em test even higher, we’ll spot you. But as Yoda would say, “Revealed your opinion is.” This isn’t about credentials or oversight, this is about destroying a rival to the poison of social-engineering dweebs.

About

I’m a married father of six, a traditional Catholic, and a fourth-generation Californian living in Chico. In this space you can expect commentary on religion, culture, politics, local history, and things of personal interest. The title of this weblog is an allusion to an obscure bit of Chico history linking the forest in our neighborhood to the mystical Sherwood Forest of merrie olde England. I can be reached by e-mail at: jeff dot culbreath at gmail dot com.

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"If a conservative order is indeed to return, we ought to know the tradition which is attached to it, so that we may rebuild society; if it is not to be restored, still we ought to understand conservative ideas so that we may rake from the ashes what scorched fragments of civilizations escape the conflagration of unchecked will and appetite."
- Russell Kirk